


Better

by kathkin



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, some historical liberties taken, space dorks in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 15:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4925392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a forest on an alien world, Zoe wakes Jamie from a nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better

Sometimes, when Zoe woke up, she still expected to find herself on board the Wheel. Those few befuddled seconds before she woke fully and remembered where she was were confusing enough aboard the TARDIS, let alone when she woke up in stranger places. She lay half asleep wondering why her bed was so hard and why her pillow was knobbly and why everything smelled of moss and dead leaves instead of recycled air, and why was she so cold, and why was someone shaking her?

“Zoe. Hey, Zoe.”

She closed her eyes and shrugged him off, groaning. He shook her more firmly.

“Zoe. It’s your turn to keep watch, Zoe.”

TARDIS. Doctor. Jamie. Crash landing. Forest. Dangerous wildlife. Zoe squeezed her eyes shut, clinging onto precious sleep for a few more seconds. She sat up. “That was _never_ two hours.” She rubbed her eyes.

“Fraid so.” Jamie was crouching beside her, a look of exhausted resignation upon his face. He offered her the torch.

Zoe sighed, and scraped her hair back from her face, and accepted it. “When we get back to civilisation,” she began to grumble – but there were just too many things she wanted to do. Take a shower, brush her teeth, eat something that wasn’t emergency rations scavenged from the wreck. She gave up.

“Aye,” said Jamie, stumbling across to his own bed roll, tucked in the shadow of a tree. “Wake me in two hours, aye?”

“I’ll set my watch.” Actually, she didn’t have a watch, but she prided herself on her excellent sense of time.

“It’ll be over before you know it,” mumbled Jamie.

And off he went. She didn’t understand how he did that. One moment he was awake and talking, the next he was fast asleep. It was as if he had an off switch inside his head. Zoe envied him deeply. She’d probably wasted at least fifteen minutes of her two hours sleep just trying to drop off.

Well, better get on with it. She wriggled out from under her blanket, hoping the cold air would keep her from dozing off, and flicked on the torch. She ran it over the foliage, targeting each faint rustle of leaves, trying not to think about all the nasty fanged things that might live in a forest like this. Not to mention the people. This planet was a mess and there were probably roving bandits, or at the very least opportunistic people with knives.

She consoled herself with the thought that they didn’t have anything worth stealing and tried to settle in. It wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t that cold, considering, and the fire was still burning low, so it wasn’t especially dark either. She was sure it couldn’t be that long till dawn. As soon as it was light they could find civilisation, or the Doctor, whichever one turned up first.

By her reckoning, she’d been sitting there for about half an hour – long enough to her foot to go to sleep and long enough to idly solve eight equations in her head – when Jamie mumbled. For a moment she thought he was talking to her, but he was still asleep. She flicked the torch back to the trees.

He mumbled again, louder. She turned the torch to him, startled. She’d never known him to talk in his sleep. She couldn’t make out individual words, but it didn’t sound good. He sounded scared.

Jamie was having a bad dream, she told herself. He was sure to settle down in a few minutes. She turned away, embarrassed on his behalf.

He didn’t settle down. He mumbled again, and this time she clearly made out _no_ and _don’t_. She could hear him moving, twisting beneath his blanket, and when she ran the torch over him his face was crumpled up in fear.

What was one supposed to _do_ in this situation? Ought she to wake him? Would that help? When she had nightmares she usually woke up on her own. Maybe it would be better to let it run its course.

While she was sitting there, agonising, he let out a soft cry of fear and her mind was made up. Holding the torch, she crawled awkwardly over to his bed roll.

“ _No_ – don’t, ye –”

She knelt beside him. “Jamie?” He didn’t respond, or show any sign that he’d heard her. “It’s alright, Jamie.” She put a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently. He whimpered. “Jamie?” She shook him harder. “Jamie, wake up –”

He shoved her off him, hard. She rolled over, her startled squeal cut short as her head thumped against the ground. The torch fell from her hand and rolled away. Before she had fully registered what was happening he had her pinned. “Jamie!” she yelped, more angry than frightened.

She heard the breath go out of him. He was blinking down at her, confused and – finally – awake. “Zoe?” His hand, which she realised with a queasy jolt had been going for his dirk, withdrew. “Don’t do that.” He knelt, climbing off her, dragging a shaky hand across his face. “Don’t _do_ that.”

“I didn’t do anything.” Zoe was struggling to sit up, still reeling. “I was only trying to – you were talking in your sleep.”

“I was?” he said, still muzzy. “What’d I say?”

“Nothing much,” said Zoe. “You sounded scared.”

He stared down her, a sort of frightened rabbit look on his face in the flickery firelight. At length he said, “ _och_ ,” and rolled off her altogether, hunching against the tree.

She sat quietly beside him, waiting for him to catch his breath. When he sounded as if he’d begun to calm down, she said, “are you alright?” which felt woefully inadequate, but it was all she had.

He sucked in a shaky breath. “Aye. I think so.”

“What were you dreaming about?” He looked at her, eyes big and wet. She hoped he wasn’t about to start crying. She didn’t think she could cope with that. “You don’t have to tell me, if it’s – it’s just, I’ll understand, I think. We’ve seen some awful things, and –”

“It’s no’ that,” he said, his voice low.

“It’s not what?”

“It’s no’ any of that,” he said. “I dinnae really dream about that. I dream about things from before – before I met the Doctor.”

“Oh.” Zoe’d gleaned a rough idea of the circumstances in which he’d met the Doctor and she knew they hadn’t been pleasant, but she hadn’t thought they were nightmare-inducing. “Was it that bad?” she said lamely.

He made as if to speak a few times before falling silent and said, “worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

They’d seen some truly horrible things, travelling together. She wondered fleetingly if he was being hyperbolic, but he sounded as if he meant it. “What happened?”

“I thought the Doctor might’ve told you,” he said, muffled by his hand half-curled over his mouth.

“No,” said Zoe. “Why would he?”

“I don’t know, really.”

Zoe waited for him to go on. He said nothing. “I know you were on the wrong side of a civil war,” she said. “And – that’s about it.”

“I dinnae think I was on the wrong side.” He folded his arms across his chest, not looking her in the eye.

“You know what I mean,” said Zoe. “The losing side.”

He was silent, rubbing his hands together. “It wasnae the war I was dreamin’ about, anyway. It was what happened after.”

“What happened after?” asked Zoe.

He was silent. She could hear him breathing, unsteady. She wondered if he was quite awake yet. In the flickering light of the fire she felt as if she was half-dreaming. “After we lost the battle the King’s men were ordered to give us nae quarter,” he said. “Do – d’you ken what that means?”

“No.”

“Means no mercy,” he said. “They were killin’ our wounded. They were hunting us down like dogs on the moor.” He was staring vaguely at the fire. She wasn’t sure he was fully aware who he was talking to. “They said we were plottin’ to do the same to them, but we weren’t. It was damned lies.” He was quiet, shifting against the tree. “We tried to hide. I don’t know what would’ve happened if the Doctor hadn’t found us. I’d likely have been hanged.”

Zoe wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t have woken him. Without meaning to she’d rendered him vulnerable, as if she’d poked and prodded at an open wound. She just hadn’t known. Or rather, she’d known the bare bones of it, but she’d sore of assumed that he’d moved on. “You never talk about it.”

“I dinnae like to.”

“Maybe you should.” He took his head. “You still dream about it?”

“No’ as often as I used to.”

“Does the Doctor know?” She was sure he ought to know – though she found herself wondering if this was the sort of thing he could help with.

“Told him they’d stopped.”

“Had they?”

“No.” He breathed in, and stood up, pacing beside the fire, scrubbing his hands over his face. At a loose end, Zoe looked for the torch and saw its beam spilling out across the fallen leaves, out of reach.

Without warning, he aimed a punch at the tree trunk. His fist connected with a nasty sounding crunch and Zoe shrank back, startled. “Jamie!”

“It’s no’ no fair,” he said, his accent thick. “I was gettin’ better.” With a grunt he punched the tree again. Scrambling backwards over the damp ground, Zoe’s hand fell upon the torch. In its light she could see grazes on his knuckles. She had to stop him before he really hurt himself.

“Jamie, don’t –”

“I’m _better_ that this.” He pressed his forehead to the tree and stood breathing heavily, his fingers curling against the rough bark.

Zoe sat hunched on the ground, clutching the torch tight. “No, you aren’t.” The words spilled out before she could stop them and he turned to look at her, shocked, hurt. She winced at her clumsiness. “I only mean,” she said, “experiencing trauma doesn’t mean you’re weak, it just means you’re – a human being, with emotions. It’s not something you can be better than.”

He blinked at her and screwed his eyes shut, turning his face back to the tree. “Thanks,” he said flatly. She heard him breathe deeply, saw him open his eyes. “I mean it. That helps.” With a last sigh, he turned and slumped to the ground, deflated.

They sat in silence. A night-bird called. “Sorry for getting’ all –” He waved his hand vaguely.

“I don’t mind,” said Zoe. “I didn’t appreciate you tackling me, though.”

He looked at her, stricken, as if he’d forgotten all about that. “Och, hell. I’m sorry. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No,” said Zoe, which wasn’t quite true but her head had already stopped aching. “You just scared me a little.”

“Oh, Lord.” He buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I dinnae ken what came over me. I thought – I dinnae ken what I thought was happenin’. I was dreamin’ still.”

“It’s alright,” said Zoe. “Really. But next time you get like that I won’t risk waking you.”

He took his hands away from his face. “Probably best.” With a sigh of resignation, he took the torch from her unresisting hand. “You go back to sleep, now. I’ll keep watch.”

“But –”

“I dinnae think I’ll be sleepin’ again tonight,” he said.

Part of Zoe wanted to argue, because he looked half-dead with exhaustion and he probably needed his sleep, even if he didn’t want it. But mostly she wanted to sleep herself, preferably for at least a week, and she couldn’t find it in herself to object. “Alright. Thank-you.”

“Any time.” He watched quietly as he crawled back to her bed roll. “Zoe?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks for not – I mean, for – for bein’ so –”

“Any time,” said Zoe. She crawled under her blanket and laid her head on the thin pillow. “Good-night.”

“Night,” she heard him say as she closed her eyes. She dropped off almost at once, and she didn’t dream.


End file.
